New Democrats

The New Democrats are the centrist faction of the US Democratic Party, having formed after the 1988 United States presidential election. The faction had its roots in the pro-Vietnam War Hubert Humphrey's victory over the anti-war progressive Eugene McCarthy in the 1968 Democratic presidential primaries, and Jimmy Carter led the right wing of the Democrats to power. In 1984, the New Democrats' presidential candidate, Walter Mondale, lost the presidential election, but New Democrat Bill Clinton and his running mate Al Gore won the 1992 election, running against big government as centrists. Clinton shifted the Democrats to the right by expanding the prison-industrial complex, agreeing to the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, and blocking LGBT marriage equality attempts. In 2004, New Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards lost the election to George W. Bush of the Republican Party, but Barack Obama won as a self-described "New Democrat" in 2008 and 2012. The New Democrats are known to be involved with "machine politics" in the same way as the Establishment Republicans, using Super PACs and political connections to make gains rather than relying on the support of the people. For this reason, New Democrat Hillary Clinton was unpopular when the Progressive Democrats' choice, Bernie Sanders, ran against her in the 2016 Democratic primaries.